Six months prior to onset of the current study, the rats in Study 1 were treated acutely with intra-peritoneal (IP) prazosin for 2 consecutive days and then, 3 weeks later, for 5 consecutive days (Rasmussen et al., 2009). The rats were then held for 6 months without drug treatment prior to onset of the current clonidine study. During this time, all rats received 2-h access to alcohol (15 % v/v) for 2 h/day, 5 days/week until the current investigation. The rats were 13 months old with a mean body weight of 679 g at the start of clonidine treatment.
